FURIOUS Iain Dowie is convinced he was stabbed in the back by his former assistant Les Reed at Charlton.

Reed has been at pains to insist he had nothing to do with Dowie's dismissal after just 15 games in charge at The Valley.

But friends say ex-Crystal Palace boss Dowie is angry at the manner of Reed's appointment as the club's new head coach.

And he is privately convinced he was a victim of a night of the long knives.

It is understood that when Charlton chairman Richard Murray rang Dowie to give him the sack he told him that he had just had a lengthy phone conversation with Reed.

That only heightened Dowie's suspicion that he had been the victim of a political coup at Charlton.

After appointing Dowie as boss the board insisted on choosing the management team that would work with him.

Reed has an outstanding record as a coach and was brought in by the board last summer.

He is revered throughout the game for how well he works with players.

But Reed is untried as a Premiership manager and it marks an incredible gamble on Charlton's part to ask him to save the club from relegation to the Championship and a financial disaster.

However, Reed is also understood to have taken a step back from training in the final couple of weeks of Dowie's reign.

That has been seen as an attempt to distance himself from Dowie's decline before getting the top job himself.

But Reed, who has been given an initial two-year deal at the club, claims he feared he was getting the sack along with Dowie when he received a call from the Addicks board on Monday night.

The new Valley boss, who was stuck in traffic on the M11 motorway at the time, added: "I was surprised and very grateful when the chairman said otherwise - then made it a very quick permanent decision.

"Richard said to me 'I have had discussions with Iain, and this is what has happened.

'Prepare yourself to get a team ready for Saturday, but we will be making a statement in the morning'. My first thought was that I would be caretaker manager, and then my next thought was: 'Well, the fate of caretaker managers is not a good one usually'.

"I did not think twice about it though. But I did have a very strange feeling because of the circumstances.

"It happened, and then I was thinking about getting a team out for Saturday because you cannot dwell on it."

And Reed has revealed he will adopt a different approach to Dowie in a bid to save the club from relegation.

Reed is renowned for his man-management skills and the 53-year-old said: "I'm not a shouter. I am not teacup thrower.

"I am a talker. I am more of a delegator, an arm-around-the-shoulder type.

"I think that's why Iain and I were put together in the first place, but obviously it hasn't worked."

But he warned that his method did not mean Charlton's players could get away with taking his authority lightly.

"What I would hope, however, is that the players do not mistake that for weakness because if they do something that is not right, then I will let them know about it."